Letters: Bleak Life in the West Bank: Who Is to Blame?

Published: September 7, 2007

To the Editor:

''West Bank Boys Dig a Living From Settler Trash'' (front page, Sept. 2) is another indication of the dismal failure of Arab leadership to help the Palestinian masses. Despite being the intended recipients of more money per capita than any other people on earth, average Palestinians have never benefited; those funds went either into the coffers of corrupt leaders or to finance explosives and weapons to maim and murder Israelis and ultimately fellow Palestinians.

Ironically, it has been almost exclusively Israeli efforts -- building hospitals and health clinics, schools and universities, roads and water treatment plants -- that have yielded any real improvement in the everyday lives of the masses of West Bank Palestinians.

Andrew M. Upton

Bronx, Sept. 3, 2007

To the Editor:

I lived with a Palestinian family and volunteered as a nurse in the West Bank this summer and can attest that the lives of most Palestinians there, even those who don't dig up settler trash for a living, are painfully bleak.

Indeed, the economic and social conditions are spiraling down.

''There is no life here'' was a common sentiment from parents, doctors, nurses, merchants, students and others.

Traveling to Palestinian towns and villages, I saw many Israeli settlements from a distance.

Most are on hilltops and have efficient access roads that are off limits to Palestinians, who must use circuitous routes instead.

Despite legal challenges and objections from every American president since Jimmy Carter, Israel continues building new settlements on West Bank land.

More settlements, a 40-year military occupation, a concrete wall around much of the West Bank, and now Palestinians surviving off trash -- this is no way for people to live. Karen J. Longstreth